Mask of Shadows

by Linsey Miller

  “My apologies.” I pulled the little booklet of phrases toward me, ignoring the scribbles of another auditioner—another person Elise was probably as kind to—and tapped a section near the end. “We left off here.”

  “We did.” Elise reached across the table and gently pulled the charcoal from my fingers.

  I glanced up. Her glasses slid down her nose, revealing the dusting of dark-red freckles dotting her face from round cheek to round cheek. A small scar clipped her upper lip.

  “Why are you flirting with me?” she asked. “I loathe politics, and I’ve no time to get tangled up in some Left Hand auditioner game.”

  “No game. I like you.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I took the charcoal back, carefully brushing my fingers against her hand. The ring I’d stolen rested comfortably on her right forefinger. “And you’re the prettiest person I get to talk to these days.”

  “Please, I’ve met Lady Emerald.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re terrible at this. You’ll need to get better before you can survive court.”

  Good—now I knew Elise’s likes. And they were good. Lady Emerald was a jewel among mortals and dangerous as death itself.

  “You could teach me,” I said, leaning forward and running my tongue along the cut on my lips.

  Her gaze dropped to my mouth and darted back up to my eyes. “I’ll teach you to read and write. I don’t flirt with people who could kill me as easily as they could kiss me.”

  Fine, but she was as attracted to me as I was to her at least.

  “Fair enough.” I traced the lines of the words I was supposed to be learning. “But I wouldn’t dream of killing you.”

  She caught on and glanced away, brown skin warming along her cheeks. “Write down the alphabet, and we’ll see what you remember.”

  I did. My letters were a little shaky, but they were correct. She watched me, head angled high enough that I couldn’t see her eyes through the glare on her glasses. I doodled “Ignasi” on the paper while she looked over the alphabet and words I’d learned to write last time. “Good.” Elise set aside the paper, shivering when our hands touched. “I suppose we can work on penmanship later.”

  “How do you write ‘Erlend?’” I asked, tapping my scrawled “Ignasi” and pursing my lips in the image of feigned confusion. “And your name? What do the titles look like?”

  She hummed and nodded. “That would be more useful for you. Let’s start with Our Queen and the Left Hand, and then we’ll move through the ranks of people you’ll probably meet.”

  She pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began scrawling names. I recognized Our Queen Marianna da Ignasi. I’d prayed for her as a kid, writing her name in blood and burning the pages so The Lady would get them. The rest I could guess at—Ruby was short, Emerald was longer than I thought it would be based on how it sounded, and Amethyst looked ridiculous even in Elise’s pretty handwriting.

  “Will you write Opal too?” I asked. Best to know what it looked like now since it would be my name if I lived. “And all those Erlend nobles? I know the Alonian ones.”

  “Igna nobles.” Elise continued writing, making the letters separate and clear. A handful of the names were harsher, the tip of the charcoal digging into the paper with each jagged flourish. Someone had pissed off Elise. “We’re all members of Igna now.”

  Political and polite even when they’d angered her. I copied her as she wrote down more names, only recognizing some—del Contes, del Farone, del Seve. Horatio del Seve was among Elise’s collection of names that were more stab wounds than words. I pulled the paper toward me.

  “Not so fast.” She grabbed the edge of it. “I’ll say a name and you point to it. Let’s see if you can sight-read them.”

  I touched the name below Seve’s. “Sure, but what did this paper do to you?”

  She winced. Good, feel a little bad and offer up an explanation. Information I could use.

  “They are perfectly fine people,” she said, and I could practically hear the “but” her politeness stifled. “Lord del Seve’s land borders my father’s land Hinter, and I am attempting to standardize education between the free schools and private tutors. He found my proposal too costly.” She eyed me over her glasses, guarded and passionate. Passionate people loved talking about their passions. “Valid but unfortunate. You’re learning much what the public schools cover. So show me what you’ve learned.”

  Of course, no matter what else I wanted out of our meetings, she was still teaching me to read and write. She said a random name, and I pointed to it, running down the list with only a few mistakes.

  And now I knew what Seve’s name looked like. Least Elise was a good judge of character—of course he didn’t want everyone taught the same. Couldn’t have the folks you ruled smart enough to overthrow you. I brushed a smear of charcoal from her hand.

  “That’s good.” Elise leaned away from me, tapping her fingers against the table. “Let’s try something new. Say ‘march.’”

  “March.” I copied her, leaning back in my chair and resting my chin on my fingers like Emerald. I knew she liked Emerald, and I had to get her to like me well enough to talk to me about more than words and letters and sounds.

  “If you remove the first letter, what word does it make?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth and stopped. “What?”

  “You already know the languages,” she said in Erlenian, waiting for me to nod. She switched to Alonian. “We need to connect what you know to what you don’t. So I’ll say a word and you write it down. Queen?”

  That was easy. I’d been writing it down for prayers since I could remember.

  Elise grinned. “Good. Lady?”

  And it went on like that, Elise saying a word and me writing it down. I’d a good memory, always had, but sounds didn’t always match the letters, and combining them was a pain. I got more wrong than right.

  And snapped a piece of charcoal by accident after the third mistake.

  “It’s all right. Stop frowning. I’ll see you tomorrow in the new quarters.” She gathered up our papers and tucked them aside as a knock sounded on the door. “I’ll actually have all my things then.”

  “Where exactly are the new quarters?” I helped her collect the stray pieces of charcoal and a wayward pen.

  She glanced up at me, and the silver dust clinging to her lashes softened her gaze. “I don’t know where everything else will be, but I will be tutoring my charges in Emerald’s guest parlor. Her residence is the most spacious.”

  Well, more than I knew before.

  “Till tomorrow then.” I took her hand as I’d seen courtiers do and bowed over it, but I didn’t kiss her knuckles—too much, she already didn’t trust me.

  She let out a breathy laugh. “I told you I don’t flirt with people who could kill me.”

  “Course not. You just humor the ones robbing you.”

  “You could hardly rob me,” she said, shooing me out of the door.

  Fifteen was in the dining hall when I left. I nodded to him, uncomfortable with his glaring presence even with the Left Hand’s demands for us to stop killing each other, and darted around him. Maud was waiting for me outside.

  “Time to move?” I asked.

  She nodded. “The only thing left is you.”

  Maud led me through the buildings flush against the training yard. Dimas waited for us at a locked door—one with a brand-new lock. He pulled a collection of keys from his pocket—none of them bearing any identifying mark I could pair with the door—and selected the right key on his first try. Maud adjusted the new black ribbon adorning her collar. He sniffed.

  “What’s with the collar?” I asked once the door had shut.

  We picked our way over the neatly groomed path of clipped grass spotted with wildflowers. The forest was quiet, a few lanterns bobbing on guards’ hips in the distance, and shadows rippled in the trees. I fixed my eyes on Maud.

  She glanced at me. “If you can’t figure it out, I’m not allowed to answer
it.”

  “Great.” It was obviously a quick way to signify who was allowed where, but still. “Where are we?”

  “The palace grounds are a circle,” she said softly. “We were on the outer edge of it near the wall, and now we’re moving closer to the center. Everything circles the palace at the center.”

  The thrum of the River Caracol grew.

  She led me through a maze of paths I couldn’t keep track of to a broad footbridge guarded by two soldiers holding lanterns and spears. The Caracol rolled beneath, slow and steady, waters warming the air with the scents of salt and brimstone. Maud nodded to the taller soldier with silver-streaked hair. The hilt at his hip had no blade.

  “So,” I said once we were past them, “soldiers and servants get their own secret entrance.”

  “The front gate’s for visitors. We’re not to be seen until called.” Maud pulled me down a path, and a breeze ripe with the tang of oranges whipped over us. “Emerald oversees the orangery. Amethyst’s residence is next door to it and the other greenhouses.”

  “Where do all the nobles live?” The paths were more forest than road and the skyline a canopy of thick leaves and hanging gardens. With such stringent rules about who could enter the two gates, they could afford such indefensible grounds. “The ones I need to bow and scrape and defer to?”

  “Bowing is enough.” Maud exhaled slowly. “You couldn’t care less about that, and I’m not helping with whatever plot you’ve got going.”

  “So when I trip over some high court member, you’ll look the other way?”

  “The nobles live deeper in the spiral and closer to the palace proper, past Ruby’s residences,” Maud said. “Emerald keeps rooms close to the orangery, then Amethyst, then Ruby, and the people next—merchant heads, ambassadors, court members. Everything’s in a spiral, and the closer you get to the center, the nobler they are.”

  With Our Queen at their center.

  I nodded. “I’ll try not to trip on them.”

  The windows of the eastern spires glittered like stars above me, and I wandered after Maud with my eyes to the sky. Towers and arches split the expanse like lightning, glass windows lit by chandeliers cast rainbows across the grounds, and trees twisted together to block patches of sky. Maud stopped outside of a building framed with twining honeysuckle. Amethyst’s dour mask was burned into the door.

  No mistaking whose residence this was.

  “You’re here.” Maud pulled two keys from her pocket and handed one to me. I turned it over in my hand. The lock was a tumbler and easy enough to pick. “I drew a bath before I came to get you—extra hot, should be all right now—and laid your clothes out. I’ll come get you in the morning.”

  She unlocked the door. I peered inside and whistled. The room was simple but nice. A real bed with pillows and quilts stitched like the night sky sat in one corner, and a thin screen painted like a spring woodland split the small room in half. The bath steamed behind it.

  “Much nicer than the last one.” I traced a finger along the wooden wall, carvings of bears and deer smooth under my nails.

  “With the understood obligation you’ll leave it as you found it.” Maud smiled softly. “I’m betting even nicer than wherever you were before this. My room’s much better than the orphanage.”

  “What would you know?” I said, dismissal coming in an instant, but I snapped my teeth together to stop the rest from coming out. Orphanage—that explained a lot. Rath carried everything in his pockets too. “I was never quite sure if I was better or worse off than the orphanage kids.”

  “Up to chance—mine wasn’t the worst. Taught me to clean and sew.” She nodded toward the bath. “I’ll wake you up in the morning. Two knocks. You’ve no windows—just the slats in the ceiling—so you only need to worry about the door.”

  I hadn’t even noticed, but the roof was open to the night sky, thin pieces of wood missing every few spaces so that slivers of moonlight shone through. A finely woven mesh covered the gaps.

  “Thank you.” I held open the door for her, intent on locking it soon as she left, and offered her my own small smile.

  Maud stepped outside. Without looking back, she said, “And thank you for not dying.”

  “Your continued approval keeps me going.” I closed the door behind her. Definitely a quality tumbler lock but still a tumbler. I paced the room from corner to corner and checked for any hidden passages she might’ve missed. Nothing.

  Staring at the dark ceiling later, wrapped in the finest blankets I’d ever touched and cleaner than I’d ever been, I traced the map of scars my lifetime of running and fighting, thieving and fear, had carved into me and smiled.

  They’d welcomed me into their house, and I was going to tear it down.

  Twenty-One

  I dreamed of bells and blood. It was harder to wake up than it was to fall asleep, and I battled with my body for control while staring at the ceiling. The tense, muscle-taut pain of waking before I was ready eased away slowly. The unsettling darkness of the room, broken only by the finger-thin slats in the ceiling, pressed down on me. I rolled out of bed.

  Maud’s double knock broke through my hazy dreams.

  “Twenty-Three?” She knocked twice again, and the tumbler lock clicked open. “I’m coming in.”

  “Sounds good.” I crawled back onto the bed, pulling on my mask, and shuffled around till the shirt I’d slept in was turned right side out. “Light’s weird with no windows.”

  Maud held up her tapered candle. “The Left Hand prefer it.”

  She lit the lamps while I straightened myself up for breakfast. She waited at the door, lighter smoking in her hands, and shook her head when I stepped forward. I stopped.

  “You’re learning etiquette and palace life.” Maud pulled a longer tunic from the pile. “You won’t be in the dirt all day now. You have to impress.”

  “All my clothes look the same.” I grabbed the tunic, gesturing for her to turn around. “Black and cheap.”

  “I bought the nicest ones,” she said loudly. “They know you don’t have much to work with, but you should at least try.”

  Not much to work with, my ass. I yanked the old shirt off and pulled on the tunic. It was nicer with a back hem sweeping to my knees and the hemline edged in dark-gray swirls. The black buttons at my throat were as shiny as my leggings. I definitely looked better.

  “I don’t see how this is an improvement,” I said to Maud, gliding past her and out the door. No need for her to get cocky and think I needed her.

  She locked the door behind me. “Of course you don’t. You don’t know any better yet.”

  I stopped.

  “Breakfast is this way.” Smug smile in place, Maud led me down a winding dirt road shaded by a canopy of wire, ivy, and climbing bittersweet. Five entered from a path to the west a ways ahead of us.

  “Whose residence is down there?” I rolled my eyes west so Five wouldn’t catch me snooping.

  “Ruby’s.” Maud made a sharp, dismissive sound with her tongue.

  “Don’t like Five?” If I was going to get back at him for the forest run, I needed to know every little secret and rumor about him. And where he was sleeping.

  Maud glanced at me, lips pursed, and whispered, “He’s very demanding, and that is certainly nothing new. It’s our job to do what is asked and take care of what isn’t, but he’s—”

  “The very definition of arrogant Erlend?”

  “You’re insulting me too, you know?” Maud walked with me the last few steps to the door. “He’s cruel when he doesn’t need to be.”

  “Entitled to things always going his way?”

  She nodded. I’d be taking care of him soon enough and his servant would be free.

  “I’ll have a server bring you a canteen during breakfast, and you can fill it yourself,” she said. “I’ll be busy with other things.”

  Two and Four sat together at the table. The others who’d died hadn’t filled as much space in my mind as Three. She’d told
me how to stretch, liked strong tea, and now she was dead, gone in a spray of blood and pain no one had the right to suffer. I took my seat across from them and next to Fifteen. Four nodded to me.

  “And again.” Four raised his tea to me, the sharp sting of liquor in the air, and downed it in one go. “No more running at least.”

  “Here we are, eight of twenty-three.” Ruby swept into the room, holding the door open for Amethyst and Emerald, and took his seat at the head of the table. “I’m sure each of you is dying to know the new rules.”

  “They’re the exact same.” Emerald poured herself a cup of dark chicory. “But be polite about it—no mess, no fuss.”

  Easy enough. I finished off my plate and accepted the canteen from the server.

  “And if you do make a mess, clean it up,” Amethyst said. “Breakfast is still safe. Eat up.”

  I poured water into the canteen. Fifteen reached for another plate of food while Five leaned back in his chair, gaze on Ruby.

  “You’ll head to poisons first.” Ruby twirled a spoon between his fingers. “You may, of course, skip anything you feel adequately prepared for, but we will be watching.”

  “We are always watching.” Amethyst laid a hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “Ruby will teach you etiquette after poisons, and your final training session will be healing. Lady Isidora dal Abreu and I will lead you through basic exercises. Other necessary tutoring will still take place after that. The moment you step outside this room, the competition begins again.”

  Good. I still had Elise to tell me where Seve was and what he was up to. Maybe I could even find Shan de Pau.

  “Up.” Emerald beckoned us to a far door. “We might not be running, but I won’t abide slowness.”

  She led us to a greenhouse with a fancy combination lock, glass walls, and pointed ceilings taller than most of the surrounding trees shining in the early morning sun. Trellises crawling with twining orange sunrise roses lined the inside walls; hanging gardens dripped with dark-green, leafy vines and midnight-blue flowers; and a curtain of soft green thyme spilled over the planter above the door. Emerald held the vines aside for us before pulling on a pair of thick leather gloves. I slipped through the door after Four. Eleven slunk away from us.